Redemption: A Gritty Hardboiled Crime Thriller: Ash Park, #6

By Meghan O'Flynn

Dark and intense, Redemption is a thrilling nail-biter that pits wise-cracking detectives against a brutal serial killer. 

 

A grisly murder. An unsolved cold case. And a father who'll stop at nothing to punish the man who killed his daughter.

"Smart, grisly, and unflinching...don't forget to breathe."
~Award-winning Author Beth Teliho

ASHES TO ASHES…

It's been five years since the Looking Glass killer terrorized the streets of Ash Park, leaving a trail of dissected victims in his wake. 

Five years since the Looking Glass killer kidnapped Hannah Montgomery, a woman Detective Petrosky had sworn to protect--a woman who looked just like his murdered daughter. 

Five years of guilt-ridden nights Petrosky spent wishing he could find the balls to put a bullet in his brain. 

But when a call comes in from the police department in Hannah Montgomery's hometown, Petrosky must re-evaluate all he knows to be true. Could the killing of Hannah Montgomery's father be connected to the Looking Glass case?

What he finds is the most shocking revelation of his career, one that tangles past and present in an inescapable web of deceit. For the Looking Glass killer isn't the only sadistic butcher he needs to find--the man who raped and burned his daughter alive is still out there, taunting him with the bodies of other victims. And the cases are too closely connected to tease apart.

Now Petrosky must holster his grief to track the man who destroyed the only good thing he's ever done. 

And when Petrosky goes, he's taking that bastard with him.

Immersive, disturbing, and thrilling, Redemption is the stunning sixth novel in the Ash Park series by bestselling author Meghan O'Flynn, though all novels in the Ash Park world can be read as standalones. If you like Jonathan Kellerman, Gillian Flynn, or Ruth Ware, you'll love Ash Park. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pygmalion Publishing
• Release date: Aug 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393415961

Meghan O'Flynn

With books deemed "visceral, haunting, and fully immersive" (New York Times bestseller, Andra Watkins), Meghan O'Flynn has made her mark on the thriller genre. She is a clinical therapist and the bestselling author of gritty crime novels, including Shadow's Keep, The Flood, and the Ash Park series, supernatural thrillers including The Jilted, and the Fault Lines short story collection, all of which take readers on the dark, gripping, and unputdownable journey for which Meghan O'Flynn is notorious. Join Meghan's reader group at http://subscribe.meghanoflynn.com/ and get a free short story not available anywhere else. No spam, ever.

Book preview

Redemption

REDEMPTION

AN ASH PARK NOVEL

MEGHAN O’FLYNN

Pygmalion Publishing

REDEMPTION

Copyright 2017

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Opinions expressed are those of the characters and do not necessarily reflect those of the author, though she does think clowns are totally creepy and she’s pretty sure Detective Petrosky would agree after the previous Ash Park novels. Not everyone loves those little water-squirting flowers.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, scanned, or transmitted or distributed in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise without written consent of the author. Don’t be a douche or the clowns will come for you. I’m 85.33% sure that’s true.

All rights reserved, including the right to send out the clown army. And the ones in my books probably have machetes.

Distributed by Pygmalion Publishing, LLC

IBSN (electronic): 978-1-947748-99-6

CONTENTS

MORE BOOKS!

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Epilogue

FREE STUFF!

RECALL

THE DEAD DON’T DREAM

THE JILTED

LISTENERS

Also by Meghan O’Flynn

Praise for Meghan O’Flynn

About the Author

For those who knocked me down.

Looks like I got back up, motherfuckers.

"You must be ready to burn yourself

in your own flame;

how could you rise anew if you have

not first become ashes?"

---

~Friedrich Nietzsche,

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

PROLOGUE

Focus, or she’s dead.

Petrosky ground his teeth together, but it didn’t stop the panic from swelling hot and frantic within him. After the arrest last week, this crime should have been fucking impossible.

He wished it were a copycat. He knew it wasn’t.

Anger knotted his chest as he examined the corpse that lay in the middle of the cavernous living room. Dominic Harwick’s intestines spilled onto the white marble floor as though someone had tried to run off with them. His eyes were wide, milky at the edges already, so it had been a while since someone gutted his sorry ass and turned him into a rag doll in a three-thousand-dollar suit.

That rich prick should have been able to protect her.

Petrosky looked at the couch: luxurious, empty, cold. Last week Hannah had sat on that couch, staring at him with wide green eyes that made her seem older than her twenty-three years. She had been happy like Julie had been before she was stolen from him. He pictured Hannah as she might have been at eight years old, skirt twirling, dark hair flying, face flushed with sun, like one of the photos of Julie he kept tucked in his wallet.

They all started so innocent, so pure, so…vulnerable.

The idea that Hannah was the catalyst in the deaths of eight others, the cornerstone of some serial killer’s plan, had not occurred to him when they first met. But it had later. It did now.

Petrosky resisted the urge to kick the body and refocused on the couch. Crimson congealed along the white leather as if marking Hannah’s departure.

He wondered if the blood was hers.

The click of a doorknob caught Petrosky’s attention. He turned to see Bryant Graves, the lead FBI agent, entering the room from the garage door, followed by four other agents. Petrosky tried not to think about what might be in the garage. Instead, he watched the four men survey the living room from different angles, their movements practically choreographed.

Damn, does everyone that girl knows get whacked? one of the agents asked.

Pretty much, said another.

A plain-clothed agent stooped to inspect a chunk of scalp on the floor. Whitish-blond hair waved, tentacle-like, from the dead skin, beckoning Petrosky to touch it.

You know this guy? one of Graves's cronies asked from the doorway.

Dominic Harwick. Petrosky nearly spat out the bastard’s name.

No signs of forced entry, so one of them knew the killer, Graves said.

"She knew the killer, Petrosky said. Obsession builds over time. This level of obsession indicates it was probably someone she knew well."

But who?

Petrosky turned back to the floor in front of him, where words scrawled in blood had dried sickly brown in the morning light.

Ever drifting down the stream—

Lingering in the golden gleam—

Life, what is it but a dream?

Petrosky’s gut clenched. He forced himself to look at Graves. And, Han— Hannah. Her name caught in his throat, sharp like a razor blade. The girl?

There are bloody drag marks heading out to the back shower and a pile of bloody clothes, Graves said. He must have cleaned her up before taking her. We’ve got the techs on it now, but they’re working the perimeter first. Graves bent and used a pencil to lift the edge of the scalp, but it was suctioned to the floor with dried blood.

Hair? That’s new, said another voice. Petrosky didn’t bother to find out who had spoken. He stared at the coppery stains on the floor, his muscles twitching with anticipation. Someone could be tearing her apart as the agents roped off the room. How long did she have? He wanted to run, to find her, but he had no idea where to look.

Bag it, Graves said to the agent examining the scalp, then turned to Petrosky. It’s all been connected from the beginning. Either Hannah Montgomery was his target all along, or she’s just another random victim. I think the fact that she isn’t filleted on the floor like the others points to her being the goal, not an extra.

He’s got something special planned for her, Petrosky whispered. He hung his head, hoping it wasn’t already too late.

If it was, it was all his fault.

1

FIVE YEARS LATER

Come with us, Petrosky. It’ll be a fresh start. For all of us.

He’d known this was coming; for weeks she’d been hinting about how nice it was in Atlanta, how great the weather was. But Shannon didn’t really want his company. She probably thought that if she left, he’d finally have the guts to stick his gun in his mouth.

Not yet. Had Edward Petrosky believed in the afterlife, he would have killed himself a long time ago. Even now, the mere thought of a reunion with his daughter Julie made Petrosky’s heart ache with such sudden ferocity that he would have splattered his brains all over the wall in an instant if he thought it would bring such a wish to fruition. As it was, the void of nothingness wasn’t much better than his current situation. Here, there were at least cookies on the counter that Shannon had brought from home. Not that they really filled him up. And now, looking into Shannon’s agitated eyes…he really wished she’d brought more fucking cookies.

He squared his shoulders. You don’t need to do this just because your ex-husband is a fuckweasel.

Shannon shook her head. I got a great offer in Atlanta. She rocked back and forth to keep baby Henry from waking up.

But if Roger wasn’t here in Ash Park—

I’d still be leaving, she said, her voice as cool and measured as if she were giving closing arguments in a court case. Everything reminds me of him, Petrosky. Every place I go. It’s like being hit in the stomach over and over again. I thought it might get better with time, but...

Petrosky gritted his teeth, determined not to let the sorrow in her eyes creep into his chest, where it would surely hurt worse than the hollowness that gutted him now. Shannon’s big blond hippie of a husband had been Petrosky’s partner, his friend, almost his son, or that’s what it had started to feel like just before he was killed. It was six months since he’d discovered Morrison’s body in a back alley, blood still wet on his lips. Six months since he’d lost his boy.

His boy.

Back and forth, Shannon rocked. Henry stirred, then stilled. In Atlanta, we’ll be with my niece. With Alex.

With Alex, her brother-in-law, but not with her brother. How could Atlanta feel any less empty than Ash Park? Here they’d literally burned Shannon’s brother to ash after cancer took him. Ash Park was a sinkhole, sucking all the goodness out of the world and smothering it beneath metric tons of shit, but it was their sinkhole. And it would go from empty to utterly unbearable if she left. You have friends here.

Not the same. Shannon blew a blond curl out of her face. You of all people should understand.

You want me to move to Atlanta? What the fuck am I supposed to do in—

Work. Get a detective position. Retire for all I care—just come with us. Evie and Henry love their Papa Ed. And maybe with a change of scenery, you’ll be able to get out of this—she gestured to the room—funk. She swallowed hard and appraised him, eyes narrowed in question, or maybe she was pissed at him again. She probably had a reason to be angry, not that he could recall why right now when he was still half-drunk, or he must be from the way her face was wavering in and out of focus.

You criticizing my man cave? He followed her fingers. The apartment was tiny, one room, with electrical wiring that, had he been a luckier man, would have caught fire and burned up the place with him in it. A toilet that only flushed half the time. Nothing sentimental or vaguely homey on display; even Morrison’s laptop had been relegated to the closet because it hurt too much to look at. Some days the cobwebs were the only thing he could look upon with some semblance of affection—Julie’d hated it when he killed spiders.

A cave has better amenities, Shannon said. You don’t even have a comforter. She nodded to his single mattress that lay on the floor next to the cardboard box he used as a nightstand. The box that held everything he had left of his daughter: a poster of her favorite music group, a Mason jar she’d used to catch fireflies, a few hair ties. Sometimes he pulled out Julie’s night-light and thought about sticking it into the wall, but he was scared the faulty wiring might cause it to explode, shattering a piece of his heart along with the frosted rosy glass. And he had no pieces to spare.

I’m fine here, Shannon. Or as fine as he’d ever be.

I can’t even bring Evie over for fear she’ll hurt herself, she huffed. This place is… I know it’s only a few miles from the precinct, but Jesus, Petrosky.

The location mattered as much as IQ in a boy band member. He’d come here to die. Sold his house, all his shit—the cash was in an account waiting for Shannon and Henry and Evie. Waiting for him to finally be done with this life. Until then… He glanced at the tiny kitchen sink, the single, scarred cupboard, the brand-new coffeepot Shannon had given him that he just couldn’t bring himself to use. Until he died, he’d suffer in this hellhole. He deserved that.

He deserved worse.

Morrison had died because Petrosky hadn’t caught their suspect in time. He’d failed his boy, just like he’d failed his daughter a decade before. Ten years since Julie had been murdered, raped, and left in a field with her throat slit, and though he’d done his best to work the case, he’d hidden the pictures of her body behind the written case notes as if he could make it less real by avoiding images of her mutilated corpse. Nor had he been able to bring himself to read parts of the written file, sections about the brutality she’d endured while still alive. Yet Julie’s last moments found their way into his nightmares, dreams where he was always a ghost, misty and powerless, forced to watch as someone yanked Julie from the walking path. He always woke up, gasping and slick with sweat, before he could bear witness to the rest. Petrosky had searched for her killer, even found other connected crimes, but every lead had died. No arrests. Eventually, he’d given up.

Some father he was.

I belong here, Shannon, he said, his voice as low and tired as he felt. He belonged here because Julie was here. Everywhere he went brought a whisper of suffering, the old park calling Daddy, Daddy in Julie’s voice so clearly he could almost believe he’d turn and see her there. Sometimes he’d be driving and suddenly find himself wandering through a field, and he’d realize he was searching for her, expecting her to suddenly spring from behind a tree, eyes wide and laughing. But he’d have no memory of pulling his car to the side of the road.

I’ve failed everyone I ever really loved. Petrosky inhaled deeply, suppressed a sneeze as the dust motes tickled the inside of his nose, and then blew the air out through his nostrils like an agitated crackhead. I’m not going anywhere.

I was afraid you’d say that. Shannon looked at her shoes, her index finger tugging at a loose string on the infant carrier as if she was trying to gather her thoughts. Just think about it, okay? We love you. I just can’t…stay. Not here, not where he… When she looked back up at Petrosky, her eyes were brimming with tears. I think you need a change of scenery as much as we do. I don’t want you alone here, just thinking about him,—she held up a hand when Petrosky balked—and don’t try to tell me you don’t. You were the closest thing to a father he had. He loved you. She lowered her hand and swayed side to side as Henry stirred. Listen, I’ll get the house in Atlanta set up, and we’ll have an extra bedroom. You can stay with us if you want to visit, or even for the long haul while you’re looking for a job—

I don’t need your pity.

And you won’t get it. But the look in her eyes said she pitied him all the same.

His phone rang, and he squinted around the room, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Just a standard ringtone, not Hail to the Chief, the song Morrison had programmed into it for when Chief Carroll called from the station. And he’d never again hear Morrison’s Surfin’ U.S.A. ringtone, though he sometimes imagined the jingle tinkling through the air late at night when the rest of the world was hushed and still. Sometimes he heard Morrison’s laugh. Even his car still smelled like the coffee Morrison used to make every morning. Thank god Chief Carroll hadn’t assigned him another partner—he’d probably punch the new asshole in the fucking jaw for not offering him hippie shit like granola. And he hated granola.

The phone rang again…from near the window. Petrosky stepped around Shannon and headed for the windowsill behind the mattress. Petrosky.

Need you out here, Detective Beefcake. The voice was female, with a demanding edge that made the hairs on the back of Petrosky’s neck stand up. Shooting vic, the voice continued, suspect on the loose. Gas station at Eleventh and Stone. In the background, tires squealed, and a male voice yelled something Petrosky couldn’t discern.

Was the caller from dispatch? He peered at the screen but didn’t recognize the number.

Whoo, son, this shit is crazy. Gotta be a fucking white boy.

What the— But the line had already gone dead, taking the voice and the squeal of traffic with it.

Petrosky stuck his phone in his jeans, wanting to slap the shit out of dispatch or whoever’d told that crazy woman to call him. Why weren’t they doing their own fucking jobs? But at least he had a reason to get away from Shannon’s third degree.

And she was watching him, of course, with the measured wariness of an attorney appraising a guilty client. He wanted to tell himself that he was letting her go to save her the grief of having to deal with his broken promises, of which there would be many; Jack Daniels didn’t help him to be very reliable. But he wasn’t doing it for her. Even seeing her was a knife in his chest. He’d lost Shannon her husband, and she’d be far better off without him now, just as Morrison would have been. Just like Julie would have been—her mother would have taken her far away from Ash Park if he hadn’t been there to hold them back.

And Julie’d be alive.

Shannon kissed Henry’s hair, as blond as Morrison’s, and the thought made Petrosky’s heart ache behind the pacemaker tucked against his breastbone. Well, if you decide you want to go, just bring your stuff when you come help me load up the moving truck.

What makes you think I’m loading up the moving truck?

Shannon stepped over to him and kissed his cheek, her lips soft but cold. You promised Evie after you missed her dance recital last week. So you’d better be there. She headed for the door. See you next Tuesday.

Petrosky watched her go, his face hard. There was no place he’d rather be than with Shannon and Evie and Henry next week, loading up the truck, watching them pull down the drive on their way to a new city, a new life. Shannon would assume it was because he loved them, and she wasn’t wrong. But she didn’t know it would probably be the last time he’d see them. Maybe once the car full of his family—his last lifeline—sped away in a spray of gravel, he’d finally have the guts to put himself out of his misery.

2

The sun was high in the eastern sky as Petrosky left the crumbling lot of his apartment building and headed north toward Stone. Summer was a fucking bitch this year, like living in the devil’s asshole, with air so muggy and thick it had a taste—damp grass and sulfur. Every ray of sunshine wanted to melt your skin off and leave your guts boiling on the sidewalk.

Another killing, another victim. Sweat beaded on Petrosky’s brow, though it might have been his body trying to purge the Jack from his blood. He shoved another stick of gum in his mouth to hide the stench of liquor on his breath.

Why the hell was he being called out on a shooting anyway? Sex crimes didn’t go after drive-by perps or even standard homicides. Maybe someone had stuck the gun up their buddy’s ass and pulled the trigger. But more likely, they’d just shot a rape victim like she wouldn’t have suffered enough.

He really fucking hated people.

The Ash Park playground came up on his right, with the old bench where he used to sit and watch Julie play. Now it was cracked and graffitied with wooden splinters as big as his pinky that were just waiting to stab him if he got close enough.

Watch me, Daddy! And there she was, running across the grass, eyes alight with what he could only describe as the magic of youth, of knowing the world was safe and you were safe in it. Lies, all of it. A bird fluttered past him and landed on the now barren dirtscape, and Julie disappeared from his peripheral vision as quickly as she’d materialized.

He hadn’t watched her closely enough—he should have tried harder. Not that she would have let him watch her that closely by the end; what fourteen-year-old would? But he was a cop, surely capable of protecting his own flesh and blood. The tattoo of Julie’s face on his shoulder—half obliterated after a gunshot wound—burned like she was feverish with the urge to speak to him.

Petrosky shifted in his seat and forced his attention to the other side of the road, absentmindedly rubbing at the nodule in his chest, a scar from the pacemaker that was probably the only reason his heart was beating at all. Maybe he should rip it out this time…but that was too messy. Not as messy as life, or as sticking a pistol up your buddy’s ass, or whatever was waiting for him at the gas station, but still. Turning the wheel hard to the left, he swung the car into a fast-food drive-through. God knows he’d tried to force the pacemaker to falter enough times—maybe a double fake-egg and not-really-cheese muffin would finally push it over the edge. Make it give up like the rest of him had.

His fingers were slick with grease when he pulled into the gas station at Eleventh and Stone. Four gas pumps, three with the numbers worn away, hulked at measured intervals in the center of the lot. Two other cop cars were parked haphazardly in front of the nearest pump, their flashing blue and red lights reflecting off the white gutters. A blue Escalade was tucked neatly between the white parking lines in front of the shattered window. Feds? Then why the fuck was he there?

Petrosky parked around the side of the building in one of three spaces facing a dirty door marked with a unisex bathroom symbol. Dumpster to the right. No bullet holes on this side, no footprints apparent either, though he stepped carefully to avoid marring potential evidence before the forensic team arrived. Hopefully, they’d get Katrina. She was three thousand times more efficient than the rest of the techs combined, and she hated dealing with him enough to get the job done fast.

The sidewalk was fractured but not entirely broken—falling apart but present—and he followed it around to the front of the building where the window was blown out, but the door was intact. One neat bullet hole punctured the green and yellow striped awning. Bad aim. No tire marks out front, though they could be hidden beneath one of the officers’ cars. Asshole flatfoots.

Petrosky raised his arm to grab the door handle when it suddenly launched toward him, and he stepped back to avoid getting nailed in the face. Hey, watch where the fuck—

Out of the way. She was shorter than he was—five-three tops—with hair buzzed close to her scalp, and skin darker than the deep, determined gleam in her irises. She wore no jewelry except a badge on a cord around her neck like a necklace, and it was this she flashed him when he tried to stand in her way. She skirted him when he didn’t budge, his arm still outstretched as if seeking the door, and then she was hightailing it around the side of the building without a backward glance.

Good riddance. He frowned at the now-empty walk then entered the building, scanning the rows of candy, chips, magazines. Nothing unusual there. Behind the chest-high counter, an officer in street blues stared at him, his face the same sickly green as the walls.

If you’re going to puke, you better get out of there, Petrosky said, heading around the counter to the rear of the store and snapping on latex gloves as he walked. Whatever he was after was back there, next to the guy ready to retch all over the Formica.

The officer straightened. But Jackson told me to—

I don’t give a fuck what anyone told you to do. If you hurl on my crime scene—and it was his scene until he heard otherwise—you’re going to answer to me. Jackson. Who the fuck was Jackson?

The officer backed off, his eyes on the floor as Petrosky came around the counter. They squeezed past one another in an awkward dance.

As soon as the guy got out of the way, Petrosky saw the victims. A woman—dark hair fanned around her head, her face against the linoleum. Entrance wound to the back of the skull. He didn’t want to look at her face. No pants, underwear intact but yanked to the side, crimson staining one torn cotton panel by her upper thigh. Blood pooled around her head, still wet and shiny but already darkening at the edges. It hadn’t been long since she’d died, but long enough—the killer was probably halfway to Toledo by now.

Another vic lay beside her, face up, his pants intact, the front of his Gas-Co collared shirt stained scarlet. On the wall behind the man’s body, where the vic had probably collapsed after being hit, chunks of meaty gore clung wetly to the paint as if alive. His glassy eyes stared blankly at nothing, his mouth open like he’d been screaming for help when his body finally gave out. His fingers were tucked into the woman’s palm as if they’d been holding hands, one final squeeze while blood poured from their broken bodies. Who said romance was dead?

Rape, double homicide, the officer said from the other side of the counter-wall.

Fucking genius, Petrosky said. Trained by Sherlock himself?

Um…well, I don’t know, sir. But, uh…the perp maybe came in to rape the owner, but he didn’t know her husband was around the side of the building, cleaning the bathrooms. When the husband showed up, the guy blew them both away.

Chatty bastard. Thanks, Officer. Now do me a favor and go watch the lot.

The lot?

Petrosky stared at the bodies as though looking away might make them reanimate, bloody and dead and vengeful against the living. Make sure the pavement doesn’t run away, he said, eyes on the mess.

The officer snorted, his footsteps pausing at the door, but then Petrosky heard the jingle of the front bell.

He was alone—alone with death.

At least the dead were quiet.

He knelt at the edge of the cooling pool of gore and examined a smudge on the tile near the feet of the corpses. Not mud, probably oil, but forensics would be more conclusive. He peered at the woman’s ruined underwear. No fluids visible—just the smear of blood, probably hers. But maybe they’d get something from the medical examiner.

The walls and cubbies beneath the register were speckled with a fine red mist. The register itself was still closed. The killer might have slammed it shut after cleaning it out, but Petrosky doubted it: a small hand-held safe sat just below the register, in plain sight. A gun? Cash? If robbery was the objective, the killer would have taken the safe to be sure, along with whatever was in the register.

The front door bell jangled, and Petrosky’s back tensed. The incompetent street cop was back. I told you to—

You didn’t tell me anything. Not the officer. Brian Thompson, the Ash Park medical examiner, started around the counter, his watery gray eyes fixed on the bodies at Petrosky’s feet. Thompson wasn’t a friend by any stretch, but he sure as shit commanded respect—and got it. If nothing else, the guy was thorough.

Thompson pursed his thin lips. The gray in his brown hair caught the purple neon from a cigarette sign above the counter, turning his temple into a bruise. Double homicide and rape, huh? Guess I could have waited for this one at the office.

Petrosky stood slowly, bracing one gloved hand against the countertop to hoist his own fat ass. He grunted anyway, moderately relieved that Officer Pukes-a-lot wasn’t there to hear it, but annoyed that Thompson was. Why didn’t you wait at the office? he snapped.

Chief called me. Said you were out here and that I should head over before you got your panties in a twist. His barely concealed scowl said he appreciated the errand as much as if someone had shit in his cereal.

Chief Carroll knew Petrosky liked Thompson more than he liked most people, always had. Maybe she already knew